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Publishing a book that receives no reviews?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

I published a book roughly 18 months ago (September 2022). The book was published with an academic publisher, not university press (think Springer, Brill, etc). I was initially asked to give a list of potential reviewers to the editorial (or marketing?) team. I did this, even emailed every potential reviewer before hand to make sure it was ok to list them. Nothing happened so I followed up after about a year, providing other names. I've even had one or two people on journals offer to help but never follow up with me.

Is it too late at this point? Any advice on how I might resolve this? It seems like having a published review would be quite useful, but perhaps I'm wrong. I was given basically no guidance and have obviously failed. Shame the publisher doesn't seem to have tried that hard.

I'm sorry this happened to the OP. I've heard that publishers have become increasingly unwilling to send hard copies of books to journals to review, and that this may be impacting how many reviews books receive. In any case, I'm not sure what to advise to the OP. They might consider trying emailing the book review editors of various journals directly to see if they are interested.

Do any readers have any helpful tips or insights?

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12 responses to “Publishing a book that receives no reviews?”

  1. David Slakter

    I reviewed a book a few years ago, and the journal could only send me an electronic copy. It was incredibly annoying, because it was also in a proprietary format that would only work with certain readers. I eventually just purchased my own physical copy, but that shouldn’t be necessary to review a book.

    Reply
  2. Brad

    It would be good if you can get the book reviewed, or course. In fact, if the book is in the history, philosophy or sociology of science, I would recommend that you contact me – Brad Wray. I am one of the editors of the journal. But I will say that some times it is very hard to find a reviewer for a book. And be sure to confirm that your publisher is willing and eager to send a review copy. We really do not like it when we manage to secure a reviewer, and then hear from the publisher that they will only send an e-copy. We have had people turn down the request once they hear they will only get an e-copy.

    Reply
  3. B.

    Why does openness to reviewing a book depend so much on the availability of a physical copy? I would have thought it depends much more on one’s interest in the book or its topic.

    Reply
  4. BabblingBooks

    Unfortunately most presses don’t put much effort into marketing books these days. I took it on myself to email book review editors on various journals and a few of them agreed to solicit book reviewers for my book.

    Reply
  5. Michel

    You can sometimes part with an author copy when the press won’t send a hard copy. This happens sometimes at Philosophy in Review, so I know they’re amenable to it.
    B: I think part of it is that the book offsets the work involved in a way that simply reading the text doesn’t; it’s a kind of indirect compensation. Plus, if it’s a good book, one might prefer to have it on one’s shelf where one can encounter it again, rather than lost in an untidy mess of files that one dreads looking at. But also, electronic copies often have watermarks that make it difficult to annotate the text, forbid most kinds of annotation outright, or (e.g. in the case of OSO) have serious pagination problems. Finally, some of us just like books and collecting them, even if we’ll settle for electronic copies sometimes.

    Reply
  6. RJM

    Re B’s comment: for me it is partly that I am doing a service for the publisher in writing the review at all so some sort of (very small) reward, such as a physical copy of the book, is appreciated and mostly that it is a lot harder to actually read the book if you don’t have a physical copy you can read in the evenings, while travelling, etc.

    Reply
  7. Hugh

    @B.: because books are long, and many people find it easier to read physical copies than electronic copies. Specific tasks include browsing (flicking through pages until something catches one’s eye), checking the index, looking up a reference, or reading an endnote while keeping the part one was reading open. In other words, tasks that are generally more difficult with an electronic copy (since although in principle many of them don’t need to be, in practice they often are). Others find their eyes get tired when reading a screen for a long time in a way that’s less acute for printed material. Of course these things will vary from person to person, but many people find that reading a book (especially an academic book) is just easier for them when it’s printed rather than on a screen. Writing a book review can be a substantial commitment, and it’s reasonable to want publishers to make it easier rather than harder for the reviewer.
    One might also feel that having a physical copy is some kind of compensation for the writing of the review, but that’s not universal—many reviewers are mainly concerned with the kinds of issue I sketch above.

    Reply
  8. unreviewed

    OP here,
    thanks for the feedback. for what it’s worth, I compiled two separate lists for the publisher that they were to use to solicit reviews and, as mentioned, I contacted all potential reviewers before putting them on said list.
    Brad, thank you. It’s a somewhat long and technical book in continental philosophy. A large portion of it deals in philosophy of technology but I suspect it is not the type of thing y’all work on.
    I don’t know if physical vs. digital has been an issue. I’d buy a physical copy for the reviewer myself at this point. I’ve basically done everything else.

    Reply
  9. Brad

    Unreviewed
    Send me a link or title of your book. We do review some books on philosophy of technology, and of course Heidegger has left his mark on those debates. I cannot promise we will review it, but I would consider it.

    Reply
  10. unreviewed

    Thanks, Brad. I’ve sent an email to what I hope to be the correct address.
    I would be happy to simply post a link to the book at phenomenological reviews, but I don’t want to solicit to hard here. Marcus or others can tell me what you think.

    Reply
  11. reviewer 2

    When I reviewed a book from a major press awhile back the press was only willing to send me a PDF with the words “REVIEW COPY” emblazoned across the middle of the page in gray ink (many months after I accepted the review request). Since I found the PDF unreadable, I ended up paying $90 to buy a hard copy to review. For this reason, I am much more wary about accepting book review requests now. I do think that presses should think a bit more about the impact of policies not to make available hard copies or PDFs without obtrusive watermarks and/or annotation restrictions. Note to presses: If you want us to review, send us something we can read and annotate!

    Reply
  12. OceanofPDF

    It sounds like a frustrating situation for the OP, and it seems like the publisher could have done more to support them. They may want to explore reaching out to book review editors directly, as it can sometimes help move things along.

    Reply

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